


Little Ghost

by skullshy



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Angst, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Darcy might not be a Black Widow, F/F, F/M, Feels, I wanted to see a competent butt-kicking Darcy de-program Bucky with sass, No underage, Violence, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, and plenty of kick-ass women, as usual, but she can cuss in Russian and shoot things, darcy the fandom bicycle, pretty much this fic was because, the holy trifecta of fanfic, with lots of confused sad puppy Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-10-22 10:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 13,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17661053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skullshy/pseuds/skullshy
Summary: Bucky Barnes escapes from HYDRA in the 90s.Darcy Lewis, a runaway meth-baby, becomes Bucky Barnes' protege.





	1. Mistake

In 1991, the fate of the world rested on one overbooked flight, and one over-worked, ulcer-ridden HYDRA agent. His name was as unimportant and unremarkable as his personality— fussy, old-fashioned, and lacking in originality or common-sense. He was a nameless, amoral, overweight pencil pusher who just happened to be assigned to this particular mission.

In 1991, the passenger plane that the Asset was supposed to be smuggled onto was delayed by sixteen hours.

This was unacceptable to the higher-ups, forcing the nameless HYDRA agent, at the last moment, to pick a new flight out of LaGuardia, and take the Asset on a train from JFK International to LaGuardia Airport.

This was a mistake.

There was something about a hot, smelly, piss-ridden New York subway that shook loose the memories of the Asset.

In the subway car, he quietly strangled the HYDRA agent, and laid him to rest on a nearby seat, where he would be found several hours later to the horror of passengers.

The Asset got off the subway at Jamaica Station, and transferred to the Hempsted line, and left at Nostrand Avenue. He exited into sunshine for the first time in sixty years.

This was Brooklyn, but not a Brooklyn he remembered.

In a handful of minutes, he disappeared into the city, at long last out of the clutches of HYDRA.

To the agony of HYDRA, he was not found again for quite some time.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOD THIS FIC!?!?!
> 
> If you've ever had a poo that will not come out, that's this fic. XD Seriously, THREE FUCKING YEARS to write this!! I got stuck on chapter 10 for two and half years!!!  
> And the hype around Winter Soldier is way old news by now lol... I'm still not happy with the ending, but whatever.
> 
> Anyway, if you're new to me, once I start posting, that means I've finished the fic! I usually post one to two times a week. For this fic, we have about 17 chapters, so stay glued to your inbox lol!!


	2. Blood

Lake Placid, Upstate New York, 1995

 

Rat had been staking out cabins for weeks. She had hit the empty tourist ones first, and got her hand cut up and the police called out for a jar of jam.

She ate the jar of jam in the woods, wiped her sticky hands off on pine needles, and moved farther up the mountain, where the police couldn't find her.

Here, the cabins and farms didn't have alarms, but the owners did have guns, so she was extra careful about lifting things.

She took a sweater from the back of a kitchen chair, and grabbed a bag of lunch meat, and slipped out the open window she had crawled through.

Rat ate the baloney in a nearby barn.

She woke up in the middle of the night to the roll of thunder and a raging thirst.

There was a car in the driveway of the farm that hadn't been there that morning.

Rat decided to hit the next cabin.

It was not visible from the road, the drive covered by trees and overgrown bushes.

The thunder continued, without hope of quenching rain. The air was sticky and heavy. Rat's cut hand ached.

She walked forward.

There was no car in the front, and no lights on.

The windows of this cabin had not been cleaned for some time, and looked as dingy and unkempt as the outside.

Rat walked up the drive to the porch, and then to the door. She eased open the screen door— slashed, rusted. The front door was locked, but it was a cheap lock, gilt paint already chipping.

Rat got out her screwdriver, and unscrewed the lock, and reached in to pop the deadbolt.

It gave with a groan that made her heart pound; but after several minutes, no one came to investigate.

Rat let herself in, careful to shut the door quietly behind her.

She had a tiny penlight, stolen from a convenience store, and it shone with dim light on the laminate floor.

She crept into the kitchen.

The refrigerator was ancient, a chrome plated giant from the 70's. It was unplugged, or broken— Rat didn't bother to open it.

She opened the cabinets. They were sparse, but she did find a can of beans, and at last, an unopened gallon of spring water.

With trembling fingers, Rat opened the spring water and began chugging.

The water slid down her chin, poured down her throat and pooled in her stomach.

So much water, she was so thirsty— then suddenly it was too much, and Rat had to clutch the sink, biting her lip to keep from vomiting.

She sunk to the floor, taking the can of beans with her.

She gasped and heaved, curling up in a ball until the nausea had passed.

With trembling hands, she grabbed the can of beans and began tearing it open with her butterfly knife.

She had her face in the torn can when the lights flickered on.

 

Rat dropped the can of beans and scrambled for her knife.

There was a man standing in the light.

Rat leapt to her feet, but her limbs weren't working well.

She clutched the can of beans against her chest and waited for the man to make the first move.

He had dirty brown hair, tendrils of which framed his face. He had a five o'clock shadow with scabbed-over cuts where he had nicked himself shaving. He was wearing a ragged black hoodie that probably hadn’t been washed since he bought it, because the sizing sticker was still stuck to the front. 

Rat knew about men— that was all she knew about, men and foster care.

This man was too big to fight off; he was muscle bound, under his dingy clothes, and his eyes were hard, like the men on the streets who had seen a friend gunned down before their eyes.

Rat’s heart pounded in her chest.

The man stared at her, almost unblinking, taking in her knife, the can of beans, and the gallon of water on the counter-top.

“Кто вас послал?”

 

Rat dropped the beans and ran for her life.

She ran right into the screen door, jamming a foot long splinter into her calf as she tried to go through the door in her panic.

Rat gave a hoarse shriek and tried to free herself— but the splinter was as thick as her thumb, and had gone through the other side of her leg. 

Hyperventilating, she stared at the man in the entryway.

She could feel hot blood trickling out of the wound on her thigh onto the dirty vinyl floor beneath her.

Slowly, slow like the old movies her grandfather used to watch, he crouched down so that he was at eye-level with her. He didn’t look at her face— he looked at the growing blood puddle on his floor.

He stuck his fingers in it and muttered to himself.

Still not meeting her eyes, he shuffled away.

After an heart-wrenching minute, he came back with a first aid-kit, and the biggest bottle of vodka she had ever seen (and she had seen some impressive sized liquor bottles in her short years).

He approached Rat by inches, until he was sitting in the pool of blood himself. He didn’t seem to notice, or care, that it soaked his jeans. Matted as they were, blood might have been an improvement.

Methodically, he unpacked the first-aid kit, got out the scissors and cut Rat’s jeans from around the wound. He then opened the vodka with his teeth and poured it liberally over the wound. 

Rat flinched, because  _ fuck  _ that stung, but she didn’t say anything.

He took the ACE bandage and wrapped it around an empty pill bottle. Then he held it up to her mouth.

“Укусить,” he told her, and then mimed biting down.

 

She took the bandage and bit down on it.

No sooner had she than he yanked out the splinter.

The pain was so intense that Rat passed out, despite her best efforts to remain conscious.

She woke some time later, leg throbbing, but wrapped in several old quilts and cradled in the arms of a musty couch.

The couch was in the barren living room, next to the kitchen. If Rat lifted her head, she could see the man next to the stove, cooking something in a frying pan. 

His right arm looked like it was gleaming— but that was of course a trick of the light.

Rat closed her eyes, and slept to the smell of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh goodness, you guys! Such a great response so far. You've made my shitty week so much better. :D
> 
> We're finally getting to some action in this fic, and introduced to our first character, Rat. Let me know what you think!  
> (As a note, I don't speak Russian at all, so if you see some errors, please let me know.)


	3. Knife

Rat discovered that the man could speak English, sometimes. There was a trick to doing it— you had to speak at him in English for awhile, and then ask him a question in English. She happened upon this quite by accident, for she couldn’t stand the silence between them. Silence meant bad things, and his emotions were impossible to read, so Rat used her words to gauge his mood.

She chattered endlessly while he cooked and cleaned, and eventually he nodded along with her words. If he was angry or upset for some reason, like when he went away during the day, or had to pick up groceries, his eyes would be glazed, and he would not even tilt his head towards her to show that he was listening.

One morning she sat on the kitchen counter-top, for there were no chairs or tables in the cabin. 

“I dunno what you’d think— what even is your name? Is it something strange, like mine, or—…”

“Barnes,” he muttered, as he chopped up carrots.

Rat blinked, and for a whole two seconds, was silent.

“Your name is Barnes?” she asked.

He gave a slow nod, not looking up from the carrots. 

“Can I stay here?” she asked.

“No,” he retorted. 

“Why not?”

“Go back to your parents.”  It was the longest sentence she had ever heard him utter.

“Dead, jail, drugs, or a mixture of all three. Don’t got no relatives,” Rat chirped.

It was her standard response to any question about her wild nature, or when her case worker had asked her why she was so fucked up.

Barnes slowly put down the knife and gripped the counter-top. He took deep breaths.

Rat got off the counter and went over to the couch, because deep breaths were never a good sign.

Barnes looked her straight in the eyes for the first time. 

“I am a very bad man,” he told her. “If you stay with me, you will either die or see something that makes you want to die.”

His word capacity was used up, so he sank to the floor.

“You’re not a bad man,” Rat reasoned, still staying far out of reaching distance. “You take down those HYDRA people, they’re even worse, I’d reckon.”

Barnes shot up like a bolt of lightening. 

“Where did you hear about them?” he hissed.

Rat decided that on top of fireplace mantle was much safer than the couch, and scrambled up there. Settled out of arm’s reach of Barnes, she told him, “You talk in your sleep about them.”

Barnes strode into the living room, and halted in front of the fireplace.

More deep breaths.

“Kid, they will not hesitate to torture you, open up your insides—…”

Rat crossed her arms and stared down at him.

“A nine millimeter can make a hole as big as a quarter and bleed a person dry in a half hour,” Rat spat at him. “Wanna know how I know that?”

He covered his face with his hands. “Jesus, kid,” he muttered.

He was quiet for a long time. 

He didn’t talk to her for several days, parsing out all of his thoughts. Rat was quieter than usual, too. It felt like the whole world was holding its breath, waiting for his answer.

“Fine,” Barnes said one quiet morning, as the two of them sat on the living room floor and drank what Barnes thought passed for coffee.

“Fine? This coffee is not fine,” Rat told him. “My crack addicted mom made better coffee than this.”

Barnes rolled his eyes. 

“No, I mean— fine, you can stay.”

“Really?” Rat asked, eyes becoming huge.

He nodded, and she leapt into his arms and gave him the first hug he’d had in a long time.

“You’re going to have to learn Russian,” he grunted. “And I’m not going easy on you.”

“I don’t care,” Rat said, because she didn’t. 

She liked Barnes, and she liked not having to rummage through trash cans to find food.

“And change your name,” he added. “I’m not going to call you ‘Rat’.”

Rat scowled at him. “Don’t know how to write any other letters,” she said.

He groaned. 

“Go upstairs and bring down all the books you can find,” he told her. “I’ll pick something for you.”

A half hour later and a great deal of noise and sneezing, she came down with a stack of four books. The first was Pride and Prejudice, and the second was The Adventures of Lewis and Clark.

“Darcy,” he told her, and she beamed up at him. “Darcy Lewis.”

 

“Okay,” Darcy said, “Can we have lunch now?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all probably knew that Rat was going to be Darcy, but surprise yay! XD
> 
> Also, one reader commented about the Russian not being translated. I typically have translations in the end notes in my fic. In this one special case, I don't. In the beginning of the fic, no Russian will be translated, as Darcy understand no Russian. As we get further into the story, Darcy and consequently the reader, will be able to understand more Russian. That's why it's like that.
> 
> Anyway, I'm doing a little better this week, for the given fact that it's a mOnDAY boo.


	4. Winter

True to his word, Barnes did not go easy on her. He began to speak to her almost exclusively in Russian, except when he was teaching her to read in English.

Barnes taught like nothing Darcy had experience before. Everything was a lesson— even cutting up apples for dinner.

“Это нож,” Barnes instructed, showing her the knife.

“Eto nojh?” Darcy tried.

Barnes shook his head.

“Это _нож_ ,” he repeated, until she could say it perfectly.

He then gave her the knife and shaped her hand around it, index finger on the top of the blade.

“Держи нож таким образом,” he explained.

Darcy had no idea what he was saying, except that word, нож, was repeated again.

 _Knife_.

He was explaining how to use the knife, maybe?

This was how most of their conversations went now. Darcy would have to strain her listening skills, to guess his meaning based on context clues. She grew frustrated and yelled at him often, but no matter how she behaved or what she did, he continued to speak to her exclusively in Russian.

The only reason Darcy hadn’t given up was because he was a lot more talkative in Russian than he was in English, and despite herself, she was apparently subconsciously learning more than she thought she was.

Barnes taught her everything— how to cook, how to clean bloodstains out of a shirt, the difference between a SIG-Sauer and a Beretta, and how to take apart both. How to hold a knife to cook, how to hold a knife to stab, how to hit someone between the eyes with the hilt of the knife.

Everything was a weapon to Barnes, and he taught her how to turn all of her surroundings into weapons, as well. They also worked with more conventional weapons, like guns and rifles, until Barnes could shake her awake in the middle of the night, and she could dissassemble and reassemble whatever gun he brought her without any light.

They also worked on hand-to-hand combat, which Darcy quickly learned was never going to be her thing. Poor nutrition, and her mom’s drug habits ensured that she would never be as fit or as strong as any of her enemies. Her best hope, according to Barnes, was to engage in what he called ‘hit and run tactics’--  blaze in with a bunch of firepower, catch your enemies off guard, or pick them off one by one from an advantageous position.

Barnes was always going to be faster and stronger than her— but even strong men faltered when someone climbed on their back and stabbed their eyes out.

When Darcy was passably fluent in Russian, Barnes expanded out to other languages; Mandarin and Cantonese, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi and more. He focused exclusively on her speaking ability, because reading in English was painful enough for her. Barnes could speak like a native in at least a dozen languages that Darcy knew of, but the only language he demanded her fluency in was Russian.

She discovered why one winter night.

The tiny cabin was heated in the winter by the wood-burning stove in the kitchen. On one very windy night, the fire had gone out.

Shivering in her blankets, Darcy got up and went to relight the stove with the matches they kept for just such an occasion. It took three tries before she realized that the entire matchbox was soggy, from snow drifting down the flue.

Dead-tired and freezing, Darcy stared at the stove. She knew there were other ways to make a fire, but Barnes hadn’t gotten around to teach them to her yet. There were a handful of survival books on the fireplace mantle that probably had the answer, but reading in the cold and dark was even worse than just plain reading, and she’d be frozen before she had her answer.

Darcy went upstairs to wake up Barnes. She knocked on his door— no sound.

She pushed open the door, and it creaked in the darkened room.

There was no light in Barnes’ room, because he had boarded up his windows a long time ago.

“Barnes?” Darcy asked the dark.

She was slammed into the wall, choking pressure on her neck. His face, slack and glazed, hair in his eyes, as he strangled the breath out of her.

 

“Кто вас послал! Кто вас послал!” he yelled at her. _Who sent you!_

“Я Дарси. Дарси Льюис! Ты помнишь меня?” Darcy gasped out. _I’m Darcy. Darcy Lewis. Do you remember me?_

A slow blink.

“Dashyenka?” he gasped, his hands loosening from around her neck.

“The fuck, Barnes? Did you forget I was here?” Darcy croaked out.

His hands fell to his sides, limp, and stepped back from her.

“Barnes, James Buchanan. Three two five five seven zero three— three eight,” he muttered.

He sunk to the ground and began to sob into his knees, stifling the noise with his flesh fist.

“James— James Buchanan Barnes, three— three—three—”

He was rocking back and forth, eyes wild and breath unsteady.

Darcy had no idea what to do.

On one hand, he had just strangled her for no reason. On the other hand, he looked like those times when his eyes glazed over, only much worse. Darcy knew that something bad had happened to him, because he got this look in his eyes sometimes, and wouldn’t talk about his past.

But this was the first time she had heard his real name before.

His name.

The torn out pages of her history book, that he ripped out with his metal hand and threw in the stove before she had a chance to read them.

James Buchanan Barnes.

A picture that looked exactly like him, but younger, less dirty— and story about a man who fell off a cliff, trying to defeat HYDRA.

Bucky.

“Hey.”

“Hey, Bucky.”

“Your name is Bucky, right? Can you remember what year it is, for me?”

“1945,” he muttered into his knees. “Three two five— ah— five…”

“No, it’s 1996, and I’m Darcy Lewis,” she told him, somewhere between despair and hilarity.

He couldn’t remember anything, he couldn’t remember her— If he left her—

Darcy squatted down and looked him in the eyes.

“ _Soldat_ ,” she snapped.

His eyes darted up, laser-focused on her.

She swallowed hard.

He mimicked her, swallowing.

Darcy watched his adam’s apple bob in his rough-shaven throat, and her heart pounded.

“This is Code Pineapple. Repeat after me,” she ordered. “I am James Buchanan Barnes, known as Bucky or Barnes. I was a soldier of HYDRA, but now I am free. I serve no master but myself. I know no creed but my own. I follow no orders but my own—”

Darcy choked down a hysteric laugh as he repeated her, word for word.

“I have a protege named Darcy Lewis, and sometimes I listen to her,” she finished.

He blinked at her, eyes slowly coming into focus once more.

“Didn’t know you knew that word,” he mumbled.

“What,  _soldat_?”

“No, protege.”

She laughed, even though she felt like crying.

“It’s the name of a car,” she told him.

He rolled his eyes.

“Only in the 21st century would they name a car something so pretentious as ‘protege’.”

Darcy forgot about the stove, but not about how his tongue sounded when he said protege, or the way he looked at her when she called him Bucky.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh I'm so excited, we're getting to the meat of the plot!!
> 
> The strategy that Bucky is using to teach Russian to Darcy is contextualized immersive learning. Immersive learning, or learning a language by being constantly surrounded by it, is still the best way to learn a language, but it can be a bit overwhelming. That's why Bucky is contextualizing it for her-- while he's cooking, he's teaching her cooking vocabulary, and while he's teaching her how to clean guns, he's teaching her gun vocabulary. It also works well for Darcy because she has a reading disability, so teaching her this way is more effective. 
> 
> This is also the way I learned. One of my co-workers asked if I had kabi on my walls. I asked her to describe kabi, since I didn't know what the word was. She told me, "It's black and it grows on walls when it's wet and raining."  
> Ah. Mold.  
> I haven't forgotten the word since. XD


	5. Drive

Bucky’s lessons eventually moved from life skills to career-oriented skills, namely driving getaway cars and shoot things. When she was tall enough to reach the pedals of a car, Bucky hot-wired a Mazda and drove them out to California. It was a grimy car that took a few tries to start in cold mornings, but Bucky refused to get her an automatic shifting car.

“There is nothing more beautiful than shoving your clutch down a meathead’s throat,” Bucky chided. “Come on, get in.”

Darcy hesitantly got in. It took her three days to figure out the car was actually a Mazda Protege, and the next three days she spent mind-boggled that Bucky Barnes had a sense of humor under all of that brainwashing. The rest of the time was spent swearing at other drivers, California hills, and her stupid clutch.

Bucky interspersed driving with taking her out to the desert and teaching her how to shoot. 

Learning to shoot from Bucky was like learning to paint from Picasso— you could never hope to match the wild genius, and any attempts only ended in tears and despair. 

But Bucky made her learn anyway, until she could shoot anything with a chamber. 

Her favorites were the RPG launcher (they only did that once, because the destruction was pretty noticeable) and the sub-machine gun. With a sub-machine gun, it didn’t matter if you couldn’t aim: you just needed to aim in the general direction of the enemy and cackle wildly until your ammo ran out. 

Well, Bucky said the cackling wasn’t necessary, but Darcy was pretty sure it was.

One of the best things Darcy found about camping out in the desert was watching the sun rise.

It would come up in the morning and bathe Bucky’s bare, tanning chest in its soft glow and gleam off of his metal arm. 

Darcy hadn’t understood what sex appeal was until she saw him in the light, and then she couldn’t un-see it.

She thought about it sometimes, when her brain was still functioning after all of Bucky’s training.

He had to have noticed her looking— it was impossible not to notice her attention on him, since it was only the two of them out in the middle of nowhere.

But he made no moves towards, and she didn’t either. 

 

She wasn’t sure what she wanted— not yet, at least.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a quick reminder, since I saw a few comments: NO UNDERAGE. 
> 
> So please feel free to enjoy without worry! :D
> 
> (Although Darcy's definitely got the eye on the prize, so to speak. XD)
> 
> This chapters a bit shorter and more of a bridge to other things. You know how Miyazaki has to have a flying scene in all of his movies? I must have a car scene in all of my Marvel fanfics. I just now realized this. XD


	6. Hotel

Darcy didn’t have birthdays, because she couldn’t remember the exact date she was born. Bucky told her that she was probably older than eighteen but younger than twenty-one, since her wisdom teeth hadn’t come in. His own age was pretty amorphous— if you were frozen in cryostasis, did that count as time if you didn’t age?

Like many things between them, Darcy just shrugged and carried on. If he didn’t make it a big deal, then neither did she.

So there was no way to mark exactly when Darcy transitioned from protege to comrade— one winter five years after they had been training, Bucky had decided that she had finally grown into herself. He deemed her training complete. If she so chose, she could join him on his missions to take down HYDRA, piece by piece.

It was the most beautiful and terrifying time of her life.

Everything was adrenaline and bullets. They hopped from Moscow to Tel Aviv to Madrid, and back to St. Petersburg, sometimes all in one month. They burned down HYDRA labs, destroyed grotesque experiments. They infiltrated corrupt organizations from Hong Kong to Buenos Aires, gathering intel and thwarting HYDRA’s efforts.

Darcy dug more than one bullet out of Bucky’s backside, and he patched her up and put her back together more times than she could count.

Bucky was already the world’s most dangerous man, a grenade launcher among 18th century pistols. But he trusted Darcy to watch his back, and with that the two became a nigh unstoppable force. They went from coordinated and accurate, to supernatural. Darcy always knew where Bucky was, sometimes sniping his enemies unasked through concrete walls. Bucky always knew where Darcy’s bullets were going to hit, so his carnage became even more precise. They anticipated each other’s actions and sometimes went entire missions without speaking.

Words were unnecessary, when they fought like two valkyries of war, leaving total devastation among mere mortals.

 

They failed, sometimes. 

 

But the longer they worked together, the more seamlessly they integrated into each other, the more deadly they became.

And the harder it became for Darcy to keep her hands off of him.

She knew he was older than she was, but she had always been precocious for her age. She had killed dozens of men and women, had seen and done terrible things, and had turned her body into streamlined weapon.

She was a woman, barely.

But she knew what she wanted, and what she wanted was Barnes.

 

\--

They broke into the Kremlin and came out with two thick files on HYDRA double agents in SHIELD. Bucky was covered in blood, because he had shot a KGB agent at point blank range with his SIG-Sauer. Darcy had a split lip and a sprained ankle, along with scratches all over her body from a close encounter with a ventilation fan.

They were in a hotel room in Turkey, having made a last minute flight out of Russia before everything was locked down.

They threw their suitcases and duffel bags to the floor and stared at each other across the room.

Beaten, bloody. 

But each grinning from ear to ear.

Darcy moved without thought. 

She slammed Bucky into the wall behind him, and kissed him, hard.

Bucky blinked, his thick, dark lashes, breathing in Darcy’s air.

Then he kissed her back, brutal and gorgeous.

Darcy stripped off her sweatshirt, and his hands burned into her hips. Bucky’s hair was in ponytail, so she reached up and used it to tug his head down, down down—

He was a biter. 

She should have figured. 

He bit a trail of fire down her neck, on the tops of her breasts and across her ribcage. 

She yanked off his t-shirt and threw it to the floor. He walked her over to the hotel bed. She unbuckled his jeans with the same intensity and reached his boxers before he could protest.

“Wait,” he said.

Darcy froze, her hand on the fly of his boxers. 

Bucky held himself up over her, panting. His arms trembled, not fatigued, but with the force of holding himself back.

“I—… I’m not sure this is a good idea...”

“Yes, it is,” Darcy shot back. “Bucky, please.”

He drew back, and she groaned.

“It’s because I’m young, isn’t?” she insisted. “I wouldn’t be too worried, because I popped that cherry a long time ago.”

Bucky gave a desperate laugh. “I think that was supposed to make me reassured, and instead I feel vaguely horrified.”

“I’m either old enough to kill people and have sex, or I’m not— decide,” Darcy retorted.

He rested his forehead against hers, staring down at her.

 

“Why?” he asked.

Darcy’s face softened. “Because I love you— I have always loved you. Did you forget what love is?”

“Will you teach me?” he asked.

She surged up and took his mouth in hers, and kissed him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yaaasssss we finally got to the snogging XD
> 
> Fan yourself, dear readers, it's a little steamy in here tehee! 
> 
> "Brutal and gorgeous" are honestly the best words I can think of to describe Bucky. :D


	7. Ghost

Their relationship changed after that night. He had always called her his _prizak,_  his ghost— now he called her his _prizachka,_  his little ghostling.

They had sex in nameless hotel rooms, in blown-out bunkers, and the backs of cars pulled over on sides of roads.

Darcy loved every last minute of it. She loved the way he kissed her after a mission, the way his hand brushed hers while they rocketed into secret HYDRA bases, the names he called her— pet, darling, my girl, sweetheart and more than she could possibly keep track of.

She learned that he liked blowjobs but didn’t like having sex on his back, because he got nightmares.

Darcy learned more about him in a month than she had in all the years she spent training with him. He was a war veteran, he liked brunettes, he once had a friend named Steve who died during the war, and maybe he had been in love with Steve, but he couldn’t remember that now. There was another woman in his life, one with short brown hair and a red, sharp smile, but he didn’t know who she was to him.

Darcy wasn’t jealous— she was grateful, that there had been other people to take care of Bucky. Darcy was pretty sure he was a walking disaster waiting to happen no matter what century he lived in.

Bucky started taking better care of himself when they were lovers. He let Darcy look at his arm, and taught her how to repair it, which came in great use when they were fleeing out of a sewer in Tokyo and Bucky’s arm got stuck in a grate.

He shaved more regularly and ate without prompting from Darcy. He started to remember how to cook. He was far better than Darcy at cooking, partly because Darcy’s reading ability still sucked, and partly because she didn’t give a rat’s ass about learning when she could enjoy whatever he made.

In December, he went off on a solo mission, which he hardly ever did anymore, and came back with a one of a kind Stark Valkyrie Battle Armor, unavailable to the public and unknown to all but the black market. Stark had apparently begun to design the combat armor to fit one of his girlfriends, but Bucky had thought it would be better to grace Darcy’s body with, and had stolen it.

It fit Darcy like a vice grip— and was resistant to everything short of an RPG to the face.

But with their uncanny success came notoriety. It became increasingly more difficult to evade HYDRA; somehow the evil organization had found a sponsor with deep pockets and a long reach. They were forced to combat twice as much manpower as before— then four times. Then five.

HYDRA stopped using third-world knock-off guns, and started shipping caches of high-quality, American and Swiss-made guns, so fast that Darcy and Bucky couldn’t catch them all.

Each mission was suddenly by the skin of their teeth, and sometimes they left lacking both skin and teeth.

One night, in a cabin deep in the Polish countryside, Darcy was picking glass out of her shoulder in her underwear. Bucky was pacing back and forth across the creaky floor boards of the narrow cabin. He had an ivory handled bowie knife that he tossed while he was thinking.

 

Darcy let him pace.

There was no use talking to him when he was in a mood like this. His words clammed up in his throat and tripped out of his mouth in a stilted scramble of languages. He became irritated and frustrated at the smallest thing for little-to-no reason. But even at his worst, Bucky was still a good man, and never lashed out at her or anyone else— though Darcy knew, from peeking at the files he destroyed, he had more than reason enough to be upset.

Darcy tilted her hand mirror and contorted her hand, trying to dig out those last few pieces of glass. She grabbed a slippery hold on one of the largest chips of glass and yanked it out. She gasped as she felt a sharp pain and the feel of something tearing.

Bucky paused in his pacing.

“Dashyenka?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” Darcy responded, trying to keep the pain from leaching into her voice.

But Bucky always knew when Darcy was lying, because he had taught her how to lie. He turned her around, so that her back was facing him.

His face went white with a sharp intake of breath.

Darcy was going to say something funny, to reassure him that it wasn’t that bad after all, but she couldn’t focus on getting the words out. The world was swimming in front of her, and she could feel hot blood dripping out— first a trickle, then a stream.

She heard him yell in Russian, but her head was so thick that she couldn’t translate it in time, before darkness reached up and claimed her.

—

Darcy woke up only intermittently, in disconcerting and nauseating flashes.

A back-room, black market hospital. Bucky had to hold her down on a stretcher as a trembling nurse stitched up the lacerations on her back.

“You need to take her to a hospital,” the nurse whispered, as he pulled off his blood-soaked latex gloves and threw them in a nearby trashcan. “I don’t have antibiotics, and I can’t guarantee that I got all of the foreign matter out of her wounds.”

“ _Nyet_ ,” Bucky barked. “No hospital.”

Darcy drifted out again, and when she came to again, it was to loud sirens.

Police sirens.

Darcy shot up, and nearly passed out again as a wave of pain coursed through her.

“Lay back down!” Bucky shouted from the front seat. “Lay down!”

They were in a police car, Bucky driving like something out of a gritty crime movie.

Darcy groaned.

Bucky had stolen _a police car_.

They were going to make national news, and then be locked away from all eternity.

Darcy was certain of it.

Bucky forced a medicine bottle through one of the holes in the grate that separated the back seat from the front seat. It rolled to the floor, forcing Darcy to scramble weakly to catch a hold of it as Bucky made a sharp turn.

Inside the pill bottle was a colorful cornucopia of pharmaceuticals. Red pills, blue pill, glossy yellow horse pills, and tiny white pills, all nestled together and bouncing in rhythm with Bucky’s terrible driving.

“Not sure which pill is which,” he grunted at her. “Take a handful.”

 

Darcy rolled her eyes. Bucky was a supersoldier, so his idea of deadly drug interactions consisted of “it probably won’t kill me”. With shaking hands, she opened the bottle and picked through to the pills she was relatively sure of. She tried not to think to hard about where the pills might have come from. She swallowed them dry, wincing at the bitter taste.

“Where— what’s going on?” Darcy croaked out, trying to get herself into a sitting position and failing.

“Just lay back down, Lewis,” Bucky told her, a bit of Brooklyn leaking into his voice.

Darcy stared at him.

He never had an accent before. Not even when spoke in Russian, or Swahili, or Japanese. His words had always been pitch perfect, to the point of being robotic rather than natural.

And he had never called her Lewis before, either.

But the meds were kicking in, and she couldn’t focus on why she should find that so alarming.

She closed her eyes and was asleep, even as dread began to course through her veins.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drama llama!! Here's where the angst tag comes in lol.
> 
> And I imagine that Bucky's idea of drug protocol is "take a handful of whatever". XD so bad, Bucky.
> 
> Things have gotten less crazy and I can see a light at the end of the tunnel (hopefully). I hope that wherever you are, the sun starts to shine and the dark doesn't seem quite as dark.


	8. Abandon

Darcy woke up alone in an American hospital bed. Her eyes darted around the room. There was a TV high in the corner, with some trashy soap opera playing on low volume. There was a duffel bag on top of a rickety hospital chair.

No Bucky.

In a distant, far-off haze, she could feel panic leeching into her veins.

She and Bucky had never used hospitals, not even for their gravest injuries. There was too much surveillance in hospitals, and they made a paper trail that was hard to erase, even for spies as talented as they were. 

Darcy pulled out her IV with a grimace, and unclipped the heart beat monitor from her finger. She shut down the computer showing her vital signs, so it wouldn’t alert anyone to her leaving.

The hospital gown stuck to her back.

She smelled like sweat and antiseptic.

Darcy tottered over to the duffel bag, and unzipped it. 

Inside was twenty thousand dollars in cash, and a note.

_ Sorry. _

_ Go live your life. Don’t let me hold you back anymore. _

Darcy felt the pit drop out of her stomach. He was abandoning her because he suddenly felt guilty? Grew a conscience overnight about how young she was and how she had almost died? She had been closer to death than this, and he had never panicked before.

Darcy’s anger was visceral— she could feel her vision going red for a second. Her heart pounded. 

How dare he. How  _ dare  _ he.

He didn’t get to be a white knight, deciding who and what was good enough to sacrifice in this war. Her whole life had changed because he had given her the purpose of hunting HYDRA. She would have been a feral child-prostitute on the streets had it not been for him, and his devotion to the cause. And he was just deciding by himself to cut out Darcy, because he felt bad about something she had already survived?

Darcy snatched the note, stuffed it into her mouth and chewed on it. When it was disintegrated enough, she flushed it down the en suite toilet in her hospital room. 

She limped her way to a recessed closet by the door, where a pair of jeans and a t-shirt hung. Resting against the wall, she put the clothes on with trembling hands. There were a pair of beat up tennis shoes below, looking as if a dog had chewed them and spat them out. Holding her breath against the smell, she slid the shoes on as well.

She grabbed the duffel bag and hoisted it on her shoulder.

Fine.

If he was going AWOL, then so was she.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some times we make stupid choices without thinking about how they will affect their loved ones. In Bucky's defense, his head hasn't been screwed on straight since 1945. XD
> 
> I was supposed to post this yesterday, but I got a little twitchy. It's going to be cloudy and cold for the next week and a half and that always puts me off. Here's hoping to some sunshine soon. /:


	9. Concrete Bridge

_Four Years Later…_

 

The mask slid off the face of the man Steve was fighting.

_Who the hell—_

The sweaty tendrils of his brown hair hung in his face, but his visage was unmistakable. James Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier. The one and the same person, bent on killing Steve Rogers. The one who had fallen from a train in Switzerland and somehow survived. The one who had stood by Steve’s side for all of his life, been his best friend and had his back in a hundred impossible situations—

_—is Bucky?_

The Winter Soldier didn’t recognize him.

The Winter Soldier had no idea who he was— that he was Bucky, a Howling Commando, a war veteran from seventy years ago, Steve’s friend.

Sam came to Steve’s rescue, kicking the Winter Soldier out of reaching distance of Steve.

The Winter Soldier cocked his gun and aimed at Steve.

Steve froze, because what was he supposed to do? This was _Bucky_.  


Out of nowhere, something flew at the Winter Soldier’s head.

It took Steve a second to realize that it was a person, and not some kind of coiling black viper. The assassin wore a tactical suit just like Natasha, but had a black face mask with a white skull on it.

The Winter Soldier and the faceless assassin fought like nothing Steve had ever seen— a grittier version of Natasha’s fighting, animalistic and furious. The assassin climbed up on the Winter Soldier’s back and sat on his shoulders, strangling his neck with their thighs.

They ripped the comm unit out of the Winter Soldier’s ear and screamed.

The Winter Soldier’s knees buckled.

He fell to the ground, the assassin on top of him.

The assassin stood, and ripped of their mask. Underneath was an ordinary-looking young woman. She had dark brown hair and thick black eyeliner, smeared across her sweat-streaked face.

“Code Pineapple, you bastard!” she yelled at the Winter Soldier.

He stared at his hands, and then stared at the young woman.

Steve tried to run forward, but Natasha grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“Wait,” Natasha hissed. “It might be a trap.”

The young woman reached behind her, pulling her hair tie off and throwing it at the Winter Soldier. He caught it in mid-air and used it to tie back his hair.

The HYDRA goons that had accompanied the Winter Soldier were cautiously approaching him, unsure if his programming had been broken or not. They clearly had no idea who this woman was, and what she had done with their _soldat_.

The Winter Soldier looked the HYDRA soldiers in the eyes. He hefted his assault rifle, and emptied it into every HYDRA soldier that he could aim at.

Natasha could no longer hold Steve; he burst from her grip and charged forward. By the time he got to Bucky, all of the HYDRA soldiers the Winter Soldier had brought with him were dead.

Bucky wasn’t paying attention to Steve. He was grinning down at the woman who was glaring up at him.

“We made quick work of them, didn’t we?” Bucky drawled in his best Brooklyn accent.

Steve almost tripped over his feet.

 

The woman scowled even harder and then punched Bucky in the face so hard that she broke his nose.

“Ow, fucking hell!” he yelled.

Steve surged forward to subdue the young woman, but Bucky waved him off.

“‘S’alright, I deserved that one,” he admitted, wiping at the blood streaming down his face.

Natasha finally picked her way over to them, a bandage on her shoulder, and a sub-machine gun in her other arm. Natasha turned to look at the brown-haired woman.

“Hi Ghost,” Natasha said.

“Hi Widow,” the young woman called Ghost said. “Nice to see you can still make the rest of us look like amateurs.”

Natasha smirked. “I don’t know— I would have never thought of blasting out his eardrums,” she teased.

Ghost rolled her eyes, about to quip something back when Bucky interrupted.

“What the actual fuck are you doing here, Lewis? I told you—”

Ghost spun on the spot and shoved at Bucky.

“You are  _s_ _uch_ a fucking douchecannon, you know that?” she snapped. “It wasn’t your choice to make!”

“You almost died because of me—”

“You’re a freeze-dried ex-Soviet assassin with hit list longer than a roll of toilet paper, and a head like Swiss cheese! You don’t get to whip your moral compass out of your shiny white ass only when it suits you!”

“I told you to get out while you could—”

“You lasted three months before HYDRA nabbed you, you dumb son of a—”

“Guys,” Steve interrupted. “They’re back.”

 

Nobody had time to ask who, exactly, was back— they were surrounded by cop cars between the space of breaths.

 

Slowly, they all raised their hands in the air.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time skip y'all've been waiting for!! 
> 
> This is the scene that wrote this fic basically. I had the line "head like Swiss-cheese and list of crimes longer than a toilet paper roll" in my brain... so I wrote this whole fic as an excuse to use it. XD
> 
> Anyway the sun is back but it's cold as balls so... not sure that's fair trade off lol XD For your reference, to me "cold as balls" is anything below -6 C or 20 F. XD


	10. Relapse

It was clear that they had been caught by HYDRA.

It was also clear that HYDRA were morons, because they were all hustled into one van.

If HYDRA hadn’t been so eager to launch themselves into the spotlight, they would have realized that they should have put each prisoner in their own van— because handcuffs were not going to hold either Steve or Bucky.

Steve broke his handcuffs and slammed one HYDRA goon’s head into the wall of the van. 

The other goon shucked off her helmet to reveal a SHIELD agent that apparently both Steve and Natasha knew— one Maria Hill.

They broke out together, hot-wired a maintenance van, and started to drive to wherever the nearest SHIELD bunker was. 

Then Bucky started looking a little green. Sweat prickled at his hairline, and his metal hand whirred as it clenched and unclenched in his lap. 

Darcy grabbed a bucket just in time for him to violently heave into it.

“Do you mind if we take a quick pit stop?” Darcy asked as they all stared.

—

They stopped somewhere in the backwoods of Virginia— so deep into the middle of nowhere that their hot-wired Jeep stalled as it tried to ride over a felled log. Natasha and Sam worked on getting branches free of the wheel-wells, while Darcy sat Bucky down. 

He was clutching his puke bucket like it was a buoy in a storm. He looked no better for having heaved his guts up; sweat had made dark circles underneath his tac suit, and if he wasn’t a supersoldier, his breathing would be considered hyperventilating.

Darcy sat down next to him.

“Arm,” she instructed. 

He held out his flesh arm, and she rolled up his sweaty sleeve to reveal bulging muscles. It would’ve been hot, but Darcy was pretty sure the only reason Bucky was super ripped was because they had dosed him with steriods, among lots of other illegal substances.

“Heroin?” she asked. “Crack?

“Heroin,” he croaked out.

Darcy cleaned the inside of Bucky’s arm, and ignored Steve staring at the two of them suspiciously. Then she opened her needle kit from inside her own tac vest. It was a bright pink makeup brush roll that had been modified to hold syringes and medicine instead of brushes. 

“Well, lucky for you, they came out with new drugs that make the withdrawal suck a little less,” Darcy said as she pulled out a syringe.

“Yay,” Bucky deadpanned.

Natasha snorted and Sam choked. Apparently he didn’t know that the Winter Solider did, in fact, have a sense of humor. It was dry as death and cold as the grave— but he had one, nevertheless.

Darcy filled the syringe with a vile-looking yellow liquid and dispensed into Bucky’s arm. He began to shake, his arm began seize up. The color of his face went from pale to bleach-white. 

Darcy only looked away for a second, to grab another vial.

Bucky lunged at Darcy, trying to crush her windpipe in his metal hand.

It took Natasha, Sam, and Steve to hold Bucky down. He fought like a wild-cat, clawing at flesh he could reach.

“Sit on him, hold him down—” Darcy hissed, and Natasha ended up on top of Bucky’s throat while Steve sat on his legs, hold them so Bucky couldn’t kick out and right himself. 

Sam held out Bucky’s arm, so that Darcy could finish injecting him. Her throat ached but her hands were steady as she switched out vials with an air of having done this many times before.

“What’s his reset code?” Natasha asked as Darcy wrapped Bucky’s arm in a bandage.

“Code Pineapple,” Darcy squeaked out. It was becoming increasing difficult to talk as her throat swelled, but she waved off Sam when he tried to attend to her, focusing all of her attention on Bucky.

“Code Pineapple,” Natasha repeated firmly.

Bucky went slack, and his eyes lost the senseless rage of his  _ soldat  _ brainwashing. 

It took him a few minutes to realize where he was, and that there was a supersoldier and a superspy sitting on top of him.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Dar?”

He turned his head to look for her, which Natasha graciously allowed.

Darcy waved. She was beyond speaking now. Bruises were blooming around her neck.

“Fuck, did I—” Bucky started to get up, but Natasha pushed him down. 

“Rest, feel guilty later,” she told him as she got up, and pulled Steve with her.

“Too late,” Bucky choked out, tearing up as Darcy still came to sit by his side, and curled up next to him.

“Sorry babe, so sorry,” he whispered into her hair.

He ignored the others around them as he broke down into little, tiny pieces.

—

Bucky was coming back to himself when he heard the tinny sound of Star-Spangled Man coming out of Steve’s pocket.

“Goddammit, Stark,” Steve muttered under his breath, yanking the obnoxious thing out of his pocket. “Be quick, I’m busy.”

Tony Stark’s voice came out from the speaker. 

“Yeah, super busy tearing up DC? What the fuck, Steve? SHIELD’s saying you’ve gone rogue.”

Steve opened his mouth, and then closed it.

He kind of forgot about Tony in all the chaos.

“You know what, don’t answer that. Just get the fuck over here with murder-machine, asap. I’ve got lawyers to cover your asses and doctors to fix the stupid that evidently lodged itself it your brains,” Tony said. 

Steve had never heard Tony so angry before. 

He kind of forgot how much Tony hated not being in the loop, things spiraling out of his control.

“Tony, he’s not a murder machine, he’s been brainwashed—”

“I saw what he did to my parents. To my mom.”

 

There was a terrible silence.

 

Steve could taste the despair and guilt in his bile, felt it roaring like a monster from one of his mother’s tales of the home country.

He couldn’t look at Bucky right now, because he knew he would break if he did.

“I’m not going to kill him or lock him up, because apparently I’m a better man than that. Just get the fuck over here.”

Tony hung up.

Steve looked around at everyone else, studiously pretending that they hadn’t heard the entire conversation.

“Well, I guess we’re going to New York, then,” Steve said.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While writing this, I did extensive research on medicines used for withdrawal/addiction. It's pretty incredible. 
> 
> I know we have a long way to go in treating addiction, but things like naloxone have the potential to truly help people struggling with overdose and addiction. These medication are pretty recent and would not have been available in the 90s-- but Darcy has them now to treat Bucky. (Did she carry that kit around for years in the hopes that she might see Bucky again? Yup. XD)
> 
> As for why, several other fanfic writers have suggested the idea of drugs used to subdue Bucky, and I think it's a good possibility. However, this isn't a strictly a recovery story, so we won't really be focusing on Bucky struggling with addiction. However, I do acknowledge it as a serious issue that deserves serious consideration.
> 
> As always, if you need help, please reach out. There's hope out there, even though it's hard to see sometimes.


	11. Penthouse

Darcy had forgotten, in the rush of events, that ascending to Stark Tower required them to get into an elevator. 

Bucky had killed hundreds, endured torture beyond imagining— but would not get into the elevator. There were no escape routes in elevators, and it reminded him too much of his metal container. Darcy huffed and tried to remind herself to be patient with him. If she had been freeze-dried all the time, she would probably have a phobia of elevators, too.

Steve and Sam tried to coax Bucky into the elevator with weak reassurances, Sam using psychology and Steve using his good ol’ baby blues. Neither budged Bucky. 

The rest of the group had gone ahead, and were already in the penthouse, showering and debriefing after the catastrophic events of the last few days.

Darcy went over to the cafe in the lobby of Stark Tower and ordered a dozen cupcakes. They were bright red and gold, in the shapes of Iron Man and the Stark Industries logo, with tiny gold sprinkles. She passed two cupcakes to Bucky.

“Get in,” Darcy said.

Bucky put one whole cupcake in his mouth, chewed twice, and then swallowed. Then he entered the elevator, metal arm whirring and shaking.

Sam came in with them, shaking his head. 

“That’s even more gross than Steve and that extra large supreme pizza,” he muttered. “Did you even chew, dude?”

Steve, who was right behind Sam, blushed.

“I didn’t know you were supposed to cut pizza into slices,” he admitted bashfully.

He watched in mixed hopefulness and apprehension as Bucky kept eating cupcakes.

Darcy snorted. Bucky had said that Steve was as earnest as apple pie, but it was another thing entirely to see it in action. Everything that came out of his mouth was… sweet. It was a little unnerving for the cynic in Darcy. 

The elevator door closed.

Bucky shoved another cupcake in his mouth, chewing furiously.

Darcy passed him a fourth cupcake as the elevator hurtled them up to the penthouse.

“Welcome to Stark Tower,” a British voice said from overhead. “You have been given clearance to enter the penthouse—”

The rest of the sentence was lost in the noise of Bucky choking up the cupcake. It landed as a wet, red smear on the floor of the elevator. Bucky then threw himself at the door and tried to pry it open while the elevator was still moving.

Darcy pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned. 

Of course Stark had an electronic butler, one who just happened to start talking while they were in an elevator. 

Steve pulled Bucky back from the doors, swearing as Bucky back-pedaled and flailed. 

The elevator finally opened onto the penthouse floor. 

Bucky launched himself out of the elevator and ran to the nearest hiding spot he could find— Stark’s enormous couch. He lifted it up with one hand, and crawled underneath, before settling it back on top of himself.

Unfortunately the couch didn’t quite fit over his hulking form. 

There was the sound of ripping, and then the couch shuddered, and was flush with the ground once more.

 

To the right of the elevator was Tony Stark.

“The fuck?” he asked. “Was that murder popsicle that just destroyed my couch?”

“Tony, he’s not—” Steve began, for what would not be the last time.

A shaking metal fist came out of the couch, with one trembling middle finger. 

Tony barked out a laugh. “An assassin with sass! What has the world come to?”

Steve glared at Tony for his rude comment. But Tony ignored him, as usual.

“Also, who’s Bazooka Boobs here? I thought you were only bringing in the essentials, and you come with a whole bunch of groupies?”

Darcy stuck out her hand. “Darcy Lewis, nice to meet you. I used your Valkyrie armor for two years before I blew it up with an RPG.”

Tony narrowed his eyes, but still shook her hand.

“Huh, I always wondered where that got off to,” he replied. “Thought it was Ob— well, never mind.”

“I sat in a ventilation shaft for seventeen hours to get you that armor, and you  _ blew it up?! _ ” shouted the couch. 

Darcy threw a cupcake at it him. It hit the couch arm and slid to the floor with a reprimanding thump.

Bucky scooped it off the floor and ate it anyway. He spoke Russian while he chewed, something that sounded like “ungrateful”, “petty”, and “it was the best tac armor in the world!”

“Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn’t’ve dumped me in a hospital,  _ alone _ , and gone after HYDRA yourself,” Darcy shot back.

“He speaks Russian?” Steve asked.

“And Mandarin and a couple dozen other languages,” Darcy muttered. “I hope that’s not a supersoldier trait, because I’d get a total complex.”

Steve just flushed some more.

“I like you,” Tony told Darcy. “You can stay. Now what about ripped, buff and black here?”

Sam rolled his eyes, but stuck out his hand to Tony anyway.

“Sam Wilson, ex-para. Star-Spangled got me roped in.”

Tony smirked. “Cap may’ve roped you in, but I’ll get you to stay,” he teased. “You ever hear of Colonel Rhodes? He’s gonna be your new bestie.”

Sam’s face lit up and Tony knew he had won. Steve just shook his head in exasperation— Tony’s favorite hobby was collecting interesting people around him.

“Right, let’s get the party started,” Tony said.

The party turned out to be a full on war to oust HYDRA from the global stage.

 

For days on end, people filtered through Tony’s conference room, with giant mugs of coffee and rings of dark circles under their eyes. Darcy met people she had only heard of before— Richard Reeds, Nick Fury, and one memorable incident with Dr. Bruce Banner.

Darcy was in the kitchen, trying to find creamer to make her over-brewed coffee taste a little less like death warmed over. Bucky was there, trying to pour his own mug of coffee with shaking hands. He was standing next to another shabbily dressed man with bleary eyes, who clutched his own coffee like it was his last life line.

Darcy couldn’t tell if it was stress or too much caffeine, but she was pretty sure this was like, the seventh mug of coffee Bucky had downed today.

“Slow down on the coffee, hobo-man,” Darcy snapped, and two heads shot up— Bucky’s, and the man next to him.

“Oh, sorry, not you,” Darcy apologized to the man. “Though it’s a little concerning that you respond to ‘hobo-man’?”

The man gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I’ve been called a lot worse than ‘hobo-man’,” he admitted. 

Darcy blinked at him, and then decided that she liked this shy guy. She stuck out her hand.

“Darcy Lewis, and you?”

“Er, Bruce Banner,” the man said, wincing as the words came out of his mouth.

Darcy raised an eyebrow.

“Bruce Banner as in giant green rage monster Bruce Banner?” Darcy asked. 

But before he could crawl away, she smiled. 

“You should try sparring with my friend here sometime,” Darcy suggested, tilting her head at Bucky. “Work out some aggression.”

Bruce looked like he was going to protest that it wasn’t safe to spar with his alter-ego, when Bucky flexed his metal arm.

“Oh, huh,” he said. “Is that, does that run off of your neurons?”

Darcy saw Bucky trying to gulp down more coffee out of the corner of her eyes. She turned back to him and snatched the mug out of his grasp.

“And you! Are you trying to see what a fatal dose of caffeine would be for a supersoldier?”

Bucky actually hissed at her, like a cat. Darcy decided then that it was more than past time for bed— neither had seen one in over seventy-two hours.

She dumped both of their coffees out into the sink, ignoring Bucky’s dying cat-shriek of rage. She dragged her sometimes-boyfriend and most-of-the-time pain in the ass to bed with her. 

Bucky argued with her for half an hour about the dangers of falling asleep with him— he didn’t want to accidentally choke her in his sleep. Darcy gave him such a deadpan stare of disbelief that he gave up the argument and allowed her to snuggle next to him.

She could hear his arm humming as she curled next to him. It was a sound that had always put her to sleep, and she hadn’t heard it in years. 

He held her close as she silently cried herself to sleep.

Tomorrow, as they always said, would be another day.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my other favorite chapter. XD
> 
> So I researched and Steve may not have known how eat a pizza because it was "ethnic food" back then and not necessarily consumed by the American public at large (so sad for them! XD) I logically understand how and why Irish and Italian immigrants were discriminated against back then, but it still boggles my mind because we have a totally different attitude now a days. It's cool to have "Italian Fests" and "Kiss me, I'm Irish" t-shirts. This would have been anathema back then.
> 
> Additionally, I went through and read the chapters after this, and added some more content to make it flow better. Another reason why I try to write everything before publishing is that I still have time to edit later chapters if I want to. XD


	12. Einstein-Rosen Bridge

Going to sleep together had re-woken a truce between the two, almost as if it had reminded Bucky all of the good that he had had with Darcy. They made progress re-learning each other and forgiving each, sometimes in private but mostly within ear-shot of the biggest and nosiest gossipers in the world (also known as superheroes).

Darcy had never worked with a team before, just Bucky— so it was a bit unnerving not to be alone in the fight against HYDRA. Darcy wasn’t what you would call ‘properly socialized’-- she had missed that window in her childhood in favor of not starving to death and avoiding rampant drug addiction that had plagued her early years.

Still, she was doing better than Bucky. Every time he saw Steve in a room, he turned around and went to a different room. He rebuffed almost all attempts of physical contact, even hers, and according to JARVIS, consumed the majority of his calories from the hours of three to five in the morning, just before Steve got up for his morning run at six in the morning.

Darcy wasn’t worried. Bucky always seemed to adapt and concur his neuroses when he had to. He needed time to admit to himself that he needed help. While he was working his angst and trauma through his system, Darcy reached up and out.

When she was younger, she had always been jealous of the Black Widow, who was everything she tried to be and could never live up to. She had heard stories about her from Bucky— the Black Widow had been one of his best agents in HYDRA. Every time he had talked about her, Darcy had been filled with a green monster not dissimilar to the Hulk.

But she pushed those feelings down and became friends with the Black Widow.

Darcy immediately discovered that not only did was the Black Widow not perfect, but she was just as terrified and broken as the rest of them. She had nightmares, she liked _natto_ but hated anchovies, and liked sparring with Steve about as much as Darcy did, which was to say— _not_ at all.

Also, Natasha liked to stare at Pepper’s ass when she thought no one was looking. If Darcy swung that way, she’d stare at Pepper’s ass too, because _damn._  If she could never measure up to the Black Widow, she might as well aim for Pepper Potts’ level: single-handedly demolishing sexism in corporate technology land with a latte in hand, and all before lunch.

Also Natasha spoke Russian, which was great for snarking at Bucky Barnes.

When Natasha wasn’t around for Darcy to bother, she went off in search of Bruce.

 

One particular day, Bruce was not in his lab. Instead, a woman in pajamas with a lab-coat thrown over top was standing over his work, yawning into her cup of coffee.

Darcy stared, and watched the woman shovel a pop-tart into her mouth.

“Are you— are you Betsy?” Darcy finally asked.

The woman choked on her pop-tart, spraying it everywhere. She spun around and glared at Darcy, while still coughing.

Darcy came over and pounded her on the back a few times to clear her airway from crumbs.

“Goodness, don’t scare me like that!” the woman protested.

Then she realized she had made a mess all over Bruce’s notes.

“Oh dear, he really doesn’t like food in lab— now I’ve done it!”

The woman looked so upset that Darcy couldn’t help but feel bad, so she grabbed a broom from the supply closet and helped her clean up.

“Thanks so much,” the woman effused.

They both stuck out their hands at the same time and knocked into one another.

Then they both burst into laughter.

“Sorry,” Darcy said, “That was super awkward. I’m Darcy Lewis.”

“Jane Foster, another one of Tony’s pet scientist monkeys,” the woman said. “Are you— are you free by any chance? Want to help me decode Bruce’s handwriting?”

Darcy snorted. The rule in the kitchen was, if you couldn’t read the handwriting on the container, it was probably Bruce’s and you shouldn’t touch it unless you were Tony or didn’t mind a green rage monster in the gym every week.

“There’s a trick to it,” Darcy told Jane. “The p’s look like f’s and none of the vowels show up in the right places.”

“Suddenly _farticle frecess_ makes a lot more sense,” Jane muttered.

They laughed again, and then got to work.

 

—

At the end of the day, Darcy left Jane and went in search of Bucky. She couldn’t remember having seen him eat all day, which was probably bad.

She searched in all of his favorite hiding spots, but he was nowhere to be found. Darcy was just about to give up and hope she could corner him tomorrow, when JARVIS interrupted her.

“Agent Lewis— you wouldn’t happen to be looking for Sergeant Barnes, would you?”

Darcy looked up at the ceiling. She knew, technically that JARVIS didn’t live there, but it was a force of habit after living in Avengers Tower for so long.

“Actually, yeah, I am. Have you seen him?” she asked.

“Right this way, Agent Lewis,” he instructed.

And Darcy was led down and into Tony’s workshop.

As she descended the steps, she felt increasingly worried.

Tony, and Tony’s lab— they were all made of things that set Bucky off.

Sterile, modern surfaces, fast-talking and loud noises. Tony wouldn’t know what tact was if it hit him sideways across the face, and even JARVIS still managed to spook Bucky. Not to mention the room was called a “lab”; Bucky avoided anything that sounded like doctors or medical testing. His mind couldn’t remember what experiments they did to him, but his body certainly remembered, as he would have a panic attack any time a lab coat came his way.

Dr. Banner, bless his soul, started wearing sweaters to his lab. Darcy bought him organic tea and a green Hulk plushie in silent thanks.

But Tony?

Tony was like a grenade full of triggers.

Darcy took the stairs two at a time until she got to the ground floor, where the stairs opened up into a whole panel of glass. She stood in front of the glass, dumbfounded at what she saw there.

 

Tony was working on Bucky’s metal arm— not only was he working on it, but Bucky was  _allowing_ it.

 

They were sitting on the concrete floor, and Tony had a screwdriver in his mouth as he worked on the rusty gears inside of Bucky’s metal arm.

Meanwhile, Bucky was playing fetch with one of Tony’s robots. He would throw a tennis ball, and then the robot would run into every solid surface possible until it found the ball, and tottered back to Bucky.

Darcy stared, and stared some more, and then decided that the only answer to this was pizza.

So she ordered pizza and JARVIS brought it down to them.

Darcy went to bed feeling slightly better about life.

Maybe Bucky wasn’t talking much, but he could still laugh.

 

(And if Darcy saved a GIF of Bucky smiling and tossing the ball and watched it over and over when things got tough, well… nobody but JARVIS had to know.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Neuroses? Neurosises? ugh English.
> 
> Also I think that I miscounted the chapters and there'll be sixteen, not seventeen, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there lol. XD
> 
> Anyway, your response to the last chapter blew me away! I'm so glad you all enjoyed it so much. :D Though now I've got a bit of a complex-- not sure the rest of the fic will measure up quite as much! But thank you so much for sticking with me and giving me your feedback. :D All of your lovely comments really make my day. :D


	13. Red Book

Working with Natasha was like working with Bucky, but with more sass.

It took awhile for Darcy to realize that the Black Widow had a dry yet hilarious sense of humor— her resting bitch face was even better that Bucky’s, and she delivered everything in a deadpan voice. Even the most terrible events were delivered in a perfect Standard English with no inflection, like a demented news reporter.

Darcy would never be as comfortable with Natasha as she was with Bucky, but Natasha’s jokes went a long way towards a good working relationship. 

And that was what they needed— because two months after working with the Avengers, they uncovered the Red Book.

 

Darcy had been coordinating with JARVIS and Tony, pinpointing possible HYDRA locations for Steve and the Avengers to rip apart. Meanwhile, Natasha had been combing through the data and paperwork they'd manage to uncover, which mostly consisted of looking at hundreds of pages of terrible deeds committed by really vile people and seeing if they could do anything about it.  (Mostly not). 

It was a good thing that Natasha was already a cynic, because otherwise she would have become quite depressed to see the state of the world as it actually was.

But there was one thing that she uncovered that they _could_ do something about— the Red Book.

Darcy was the only one that Natasha had trusted to share this mission with. 

Darcy felt honored— and terrified. She  had heard exactly one reference to the Red Book while traipsing across Europe defeating HYDRA. She had promptly buried that reference deep in the recesses of her mind, because the implications of it were the stuff of literal nightmares. 

Brain-washing, sleeper agents, trigger words, turning men into puppets? It sounded like sci-fiction, except Darcy knew it was too horrifying to be anything but true.

It was Natasha who confirmed that the nightmare was real and lurking just beneath the surface. There was a red leather book, and it could turn the Winter Soldier back into his mindless murder machine self— _permanently_.

Darcy promptly went and threw up in the bathroom. She then accepted a kleenex and breath mint from Natasha, who had followed her in and was now standing over her.

“How can you be so stoic about this?” Darcy croaked out.

“I’m not stoic, I’m terrified,” Natasha murmured. “That book can undo me just as much as it can him.”

“Oh god,” Darcy said, and had to put her head between her knees as her world spun out of control.

Darcy had never been afraid  _ of  _ Bucky. She had never been afraid of him killing her, though she logically knew that could be a possibility— either by purpose or on accident. 

Instead, she was afraid  _ for  _ him. What she feared the most was the moment that Bucky was no more, and there was only the Winter Soldier, with nothing left of the terrified, stubborn, wonderful man that she had stood by for years. The man that she loved, even though neither of them could admit it at this point.

She knew that if he became brain-washed one more time, it would break him. 

There would be no Bucky left.

  
  


After a long time, Darcy rose on shaky feet.

She stared Natasha in the eyes.

“Tell me what we need to do.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WAAAAHHH!!! Yes, we're going to touch on the Red Book! Muhahahaha!!
> 
> Anyway, this is a short transition chapter, but the next couple will be much longer. Also, I added about 200 words to this chapter this morning because I love you guys and felt that I could elaborate a little more. My fanfic writing style is known for being pretty sparse and pared down, which is hilarious because my novel writing style is the exact opposite. So I gave into the urge to add a little more meat to the bones lol. XD


	14. Siberia

The Red Book was located in Siberia, deep in a secret HYDRA bunker that even Natasha hadn’t known about. 

Bucky was in no condition to go, but he insisted anyway, because he was a stubborn asshole. Darcy alternated between telling him off and shoving nutrition shakes down his throat. He had lost a lot of weight since breaking his brainwashing, and she didn’t want him to keel over in the middle of Siberia.

Then, because Bucky wanted to go, Steve found out about it and demanded that he accompany them as well. That of course, tipped Tony off that something was going on, and he joined just because he didn’t want to be left out. 

It was with a very pissed of Black Widow that they made their way into the bunker. 

The bunker was enormous, spreading out deep underground like some atomic age idea of a horror movie. The silence of their voices, the puffs of breath that condensed in the air— it was unnerving, to say the least. 

Darcy tapped her flashlight in her palm just to have something to do that wasn’t thinking about how desolate this place is.

Steve begrudgingly allowed them to split up, as the place is too big for them search in teams. They were looking for one single book in a building large enough to shelter a city for a decade, at least. It could take hours, if not days to full explore the bunker.

Darcy squeezed Bucky’s hand, the human one that was sweaty and alive. Then she turned and went down the hall.

She walked down the hall in the typical search stance— gun out, flashlight in opposite hand crossed over gun hand. She walked heel to toe, taking everything in.

There was hardly any light in the bunker, and a layer of dust over everything that suggested that this facility hadn’t been used in a long time. Everything was in shades of grey; grey walls, grey steel pipes, grey concrete floors. 

Even the doors were grey.

There was one door hanging off of its hinges at the end of the hall. Darcy nudged it open, wincing as the door creaked. 

 

Inside was a chamber full of cryostasis tanks.

 

The glass of each tank was shattered, the victims are bleeding out on floor.

 

Darcy’s heart started to pound. 

Trembling, she went over to the nearest tank, and stuck her hand in the water at the bottom, narrowly avoiding slicing her hand on the cut glass.

The water was still warm.

“Guys, we’re not the only ones here,” Darcy whispered into the intercoms.

“So zey are not all stupid,” a voice muttered behind her.

Darcy spun around, and got a face full rifle-stock. She collapsed to the floor.

 

There was a crackle of static over the intercom— Tony.

“Sorry Ghost, could you repeat that one more time so I can tell Steve I told you so?” he joked.

“Ghost? Darcy? Darcy, do you read?”

The last thing she heard was her name.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUN.
> 
> *hands out pillows so people can scream into them*


	15. Bullet

“I think we’re down a Darcy,” Tony reported.

It was a sentence that Bucky was certain would reappear in his nightmares for months to come. Bucky halted his search, and took cover near a staircase to regroup and calm his panicking brain. All he could think of was that he should have been training with Darcy again, made sure she was up to this after having been away for so long—

“Last known location?” Bucky spat out.

“Er, JARVIS says somewhere east, I think— oh god.”

“What!” Bucky and Steve hissed at same time, almost on top of each other.

“No, I’m fine,” Tony answered automatically.

He didn’t sound fine— dazed or overwhelmed was more apt description of his voice.

“Just a little… traumatized. Currently watching a video of the Winter Soldier killing my parents.”

Steve choked on whatever he was going to say next.

“Come on, why you gotta kill my mom, huh?” Tony said softly enough that Bucky was sure it wasn’t meant to be heard by them.

“‘Cuz your ma was the smart one,” Bucky elaborated. “Half of those inventions were hers, just published under Stark’s name.”

Tony made a strangled noise.

“That explains so much— and fuck, I found Darcy!”

“Where?!” Bucky roared— but it wasn’t necessary. He leapt down the stairs and around the corner, and came face to face with Darcy himself.

He had entered into a cavernous room with a ceiling that went up for miles. It was a ventilation shaft of epic Soviet proportions, miles high above their heads. There were windows in the room by the far wall; it was the only room so far to have them. Outside, a blizzard raged on, rattling the window panes.

Inside, there were broken screens and electronics scattered everywhere, some of them still playing fragments of the video that must have been the Winter Soldier killing Stark’s family.

Stark was off to the side, pulsors blazing and chest heaving.

In the center of the room stood a man. The man wore an old Soviet-esque uniform, like the kind Bucky saw in battle in World War II. The uniform was well-cared for, but frayed around the edges and at the lapels. He was lean but obviously had muscles hidden underneath— he held Darcy by the back of her tac armor and had no trouble dragging her across the floor.

Bucky hissed and glared at the man.

The man had a zealous gleam to his eyes that reminded Bucky uncomfortably of Zola.

He even sounded like Zola.

“I have captured ze reason for ze Winter’s Solider’s brokenness,” the man declared.

He gave Darcy a shake.

She coughed and spat out some blood. Not unconscious then, just insensate.

“Stupid girl, trying to dismantle zis glorious weapon. You are like ant trying to use computer,” he grated out. “I, Helmut Zemo, will restore ze Winter Soldier to his deadly nature!”

Zemo dropped Darcy to floor, where she clutched her neck and gasped for breath.

Bucky knew she wasn’t really that hurt— playing dead and then making the enemy way more dead was one of her specialties.

Zemo then pulled out a red book from his pocket and began reading from it.

He tensed himself— _God and Jesus and Lenin_ , he was going to go back to the way he had been, a disgusting monster that had no control over itself—

A red haze descended over his eyes. He could feel himself sinking, returning back to _soldat,_  who had no feelings and cared for nothing but the mission.

 

 _Gun_.

 _Kill the girl_.

He readied his rifle and aimed it.

  


A bullet went off.

It sliced through Zemo’s neck. A second went through Zemo’s right hand before he could finish saying _девять_.

Zemo toppled to the floor— Darcy launched herself up in one fluid movement.

She yanked Zemo’s pistol out of his holster, and shot him in the head with it.

Darcy tried to shoot him again, but the pistol jammed. She kept rattling the trigger, hands shaking, but nothing was coming out.

Bucky dropped his rifle and came over to her. He put his arms around her, gently lowering the pistol from her hands.

“It’s gonna blow if you do that. Let it go, it’s over,” he murmured to her.

Darcy dropped the pistol to the floor. Tony came over and kicked Zemo in the ribs, and then knelt down to rifle through the man’s pockets.

 

 _All power to him_ , Darcy thought, and went back to snuggling her off-again-on-again supersoldier boyfriend.

 

“Sorry, it’s just been a while,” Darcy admitted.

“I know,” Bucky said. “And… and I was wrong to keep you from this.”

Darcy looked up in surprise. It was a rare day in hell when more-stubborn-than-half-of-Brooklyn Bucky Barnes admitted he was wrong.

“I sorta… forgot that this was as much a part of you as it is me,” he continued. “And most of that’s my fault, true, but it’s too late to change it now.”

Darcy gave a fierce nod.

“Just so you know, I am never going to be able to pull off what Black Widow does. I’m not even going to try.”

“I don’t want you to be Black Widow,” Bucky told her. “I just want you to be Dashyenka.”

They kissed until Tony made gagging sounds, and then broke apart, embarrassed.

 

Black Widow held up the Red Book.

“Let’s get back to base— I want to be able to walk into a nail salon without breaking into a cold sweat,” Natasha ordered.

“Oh, huh,” Tony answered. “I was wondering what happened with that girls’ day out you and Pepper had planned.”

“Bad things happened, that’s what,” Natasha retorted, and she herded them all back out to the Stark plane.

Bucky and Steve were the last ones into the plane.

 

When they climbed into the back of the plane, Steve grabbed the edge of Bucky’s sleeve and tugged on it, like he did when they were both much younger and not yet torn by war.

Bucky was so surprised that he even remembered about Stevie tugging at his shirt that he froze.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean—” Steve began. “Didn’t mean to startle you. I just—”

 

Bucky had to look up at him now; Steve was now taller than him.

“She’s it, isn’t she?” he whispered.

Steve couldn’t look Bucky in the eye.  


Bucky slapped Steve across his broad shoulders, startling Steve into meeting his eyes.

“Yeah, she’s the one,” Bucky told him. “But that doesn’t mean I’m giving you up either, dummy.”

Steve looked surprised, and then pleased. Then he embraced Bucky in a sudden hug that made his ribs creak. Bucky held his breath, but Steve let go before he got a panic attack.

“‘Sides, gotta get you a hot, dumb man to slobber after, now that you haven’t got me,” Bucky quipped.

Steve turned red and then white and then red again, sputtering the entire time.

“I knew it!” Darcy declared from the front of the plane. “Cough up, Tony!”

Steve groaned and put his hands over his face.

Up in the front, Tony shoved a couple hundred bucks at Darcy, cackling all the while.

“It’s— It’s not like that!” Steve protested to deaf ears.

—

Up in the cockpit, Natasha sighed as she steered the plane. The noise was lost in the racket behind her, as Steve was loudly protesting his non-existent heteronormativity, while Darcy and Tony were tag-teaming to see who could embarrass Steve the most.

“JARVIS, what’s our ETA for home?” Natasha asked.

“About 15 minutes, Agent Romanov,” JARVIS responded. “Would you like me to inform Miss Potts that you will be home in time for dinner?”

Natasha felt her cheeks heat. She looked left and then right— no one was paying attention. Barnes had Steve in a playful headlock while Darcy made fun of them both. Tony was already knee-deep in whatever was on his holographic cellphone.

“Please do so. Let her know…” Natasha paused, wondering how to phrase it. “I’ll bring the wine?”

“Of course, Agent Romanov,” JARVIS said.

And if she was flew them home a whole five minutes early, well.

Pepper was wearing that Gucci pantsuit today, and had even sent her a picture of it.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, what a ride!! One more chapter left to resolve some loose ends.
> 
> I actually have a fic marinating somewhere about how Maria is the true genius, not Howard, after I read an scientific article that I read that says that the mother's natural intelligence is what dictates the child's intelligence, not the father. I did a quick reference to it here, though honestly I doubt I'll ever publish it as I don't have many ideas for it. I also have some ideas for Pepper/Natasha, but never put them to paper. I highlighted them a bit in this fic, just in case I never get around to it. XD


	16. End of the Line

Bucky had once told her that death was the only rest that people like them got. It was true— defeating HYDRA didn’t mean that there were no more bad guys in the world. 

It didn’t even mean that HYDRA might never come back; as sure as they were about wiping the organization from the earth, there was always the chance that it would resurge some time in the future.

What it did mean was that she and Bucky could rent out a flat in Bed Stuy, and buy groceries from the bodega, and live their lives more or less like normal people— except with gun cleaning parties (Bucky) and five locks on the door (Bucky) and an unhealthy interest in other people’s private digital data (Darcy).

When the Avengers had at last defeated HYDRA, Darcy had been at loose ends. She didn’t know what to do with a life without thwarting HYDRA. Her life had never followed the standard two-point-five kids and a picket fence, and she didn’t have any life skills other than shooting things.

Luckily, Natasha introduced her to Hawkeye. He was a grungy Bed Stuy boy with a bow and arrow (Darcy tried to wrap her head around that and just gave up), and he had zero job-applicable life skills like she did. He had apparently aquired a crumbling apartment building and immediately stashed them in one of the flats when Tony’s explosions got to be a bit too much.

Bucky transitioned from field work to intell, as there was apparently a high demand for Russian translators who how to interpret, “the guns are in the pantry and the bullets are in the oven”. He only occassionally took freelance work— mostly killing people who damn well deserved it but were untouchable for some reason.

Darcy bounced around a lot— babysitting for super kids, freelance shooting, and helping Clint give the local mafia a run for their money.

Clint asked her to help with other stuff, as well— watching Lucky, his trash doggo who ate pizza, and one time he called her up because “Katie Kate’s gotta get emancipated from her dick-ass dad and I’m dyslexic and can’t read the forms”. 

Darcy came up to Clint’s apartment out of sheer curiosity of who the fuck was “Katie Kate”, and immediately made best friends with the coolest seventeen year old that she’d ever met. Darcy couldn’t read the forms worth shit either, but she found a deep abiding passion for helping other kids out of shitty life situations.

So that’s what she did.

 

Sam helped her get her GED— other than the reading sections, it was actually easier than anything Bucky had made her learn, and then helped her sign up for online college classes. Darcy was working towards her Masters in Social Work, which still boggled her mind whenever anyone asked her what she was doing.

Darcy was paging through her textbook, pretending to study when all she could think about was how much she wanted a popsicle. Her laptop was open with a half-written essay that she couldn’t be bothered to finish. The air conditioner was working— for the given value of working. It sluggishly churned out lukewarm air, wheezing like an asthmatic on the fifth flight of stairs.

Darcy had set up fans on every horizontal surface she could. It was more effective than mace for burglary deterrent, as evidenced by Bucky tripping over them every time he got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.   
  


She heard footsteps coming up the stairs— Bucky’s rolling, heavy gate that was almost a stomp on the rickety stairs, and another, much lighter and hesitant.

Something in Darcy’s gut told her to open the door, so she did. 

Bucky was on the landing, his t-shirt and jeans soaked through with rain. His raincoat was wrapped around a young, waifish looking boy with enormous eyes.

Bucky had his arm at the boy’s back, and gently coaxed him forward.

“Peter, this is Darcy, she’s here to help,” Bucky told the boy.

Darcy crouched down, a smile on her face.

 

“Hey kiddo,” she said. “Let’s get you inside.”

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, it's the end!! *cries*
> 
> Thank you all so, so much for embarking on this lovely journey with me. I had a ton of fun, and I think this fic turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. XD
> 
> I'm not sure what will be up next on the docket, but I expect it will take a little longer than my average, probably a year and a half. I'm in the middle of a life transition and I'm trying to get a new career because I don't like what I have right now. So it'll take a little longer, but thanks for being patient. :D :D


End file.
